LAS VEGAS (AP) — This could be an unprecedented weekend for road favorites in the NFL playoffs, which open Saturday with the wild-card round.
Four road teams were favored at BetMGM Sportsbook as of Wednesday afternoon. Two of those games had 1-point spreads — Green Bay at Chicago and Buffalo at Jacksonville — so it's possible the number of road favorites will be down to two when the games begin. The Packers-Bears line has bounced back and forth, but
the Bills have been steady favorites over the Jaguars.
The Los Angeles Rams are favored by 10 1/2 points at Carolina, and Houston is a field-goal favorite at Pittsburgh.
“That’ll speak to how wide open this playoff is projected to be,” BetMGM sports trader Christian Cipollini said. “Some of them make sense. You have the Panthers who got in with a losing record, and the Steelers have looked questionable at times.”
There were only three road favorites all of last postseason, according to Sportradar, and that was the highest number dating to the 2016 season, the first year the statistic was tracked. Two of those games were in the wild-card round, but in both, the home underdog prevailed — Houston over the Los Angeles Chargers and the Rams over Minnesota.
Even in the games this year in which the home team is favored, the lines aren't that big.
Defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia is a 4 1/2-point favorite over San Francisco, and New England is favored by 3 1/2 over the Chargers.
“Very, very odd that (at least) half the games in the wild-card round would have road favorites,” CBS SportsLine handicapper Bruce Marshall said. “I do not think that's happened before, off the top of my head. With the exception of the Niners and maybe Pittsburgh, I can make a case for all those other underdogs, and in the Niners and Pittsburgh games, I'm not sure I like the favorites all that much.”
The two favorites to win the Super Bowl are from the NFC West. Seattle is listed at +375 at BetMGM and the Rams are at +425. The Seahawks are at +330 at DraftKings Sportsbook and the Rams are at +425.
“That's quite rare,” said Johnny Avello, DraftKings director of race and sportsbook operations. “Usually, it will kind of be spread out a little bit. They have the two teams with the highest power ratings.”
Avello said those are the two most complete teams entering the postseason.
“The thing about the Rams and Seattle is that they just look so good on both sides of the ball,” Avello said. “Other teams maybe look good on offense, defense is OK. But these two teams have looked solid as of late.”
Denver is a +225 favorite at BetMGM to emerge as the AFC representative in the Super Bowl and listed at +650 to win it. The numbers are nearly identical at DraftKings.
But there is skepticism about whether the Broncos will go all the way. They lived dangerously this season, winning 11 games by one-score margins.
“I think they're really comfortable playing close games like that,” Marshall said. “It's not that Denver couldn't get to the Super Bowl and win it, but they're not overwhelming.”
Some of Josh Allen's biggest obstacles are out of the way. Fellow standout AFC quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson are sitting at home, while Allen hopes to finally lead the Bills to a championship.
Though the Bills don't have the easiest path, there's a reason they're favored to win at red-hot Jacksonville on Sunday.
“The Bills-Jaguars one is crazy because the Jaguars have looked so good as of late," Cipollini said. “You can make a solid argument over the last month they’ve looked like the best team in the AFC, but on the other side is the Bills with a guy named Josh Allen. That changes everything when you get to the playoffs.”
The Steelers have been unbeatable on Monday nights, and that's the timeslot for their matchup with the Texans. They have won 23 consecutive games in that prime-time window, a streak that dates back to 1991.
But Pittsburgh also hasn't won a playoff game since the 2016 season, a stretch of six straight losses.
“Those type of trends that are kind of historical are always interesting, good little nuggets, but don't come into effect so much (with the betting lines),” Cipollini said. “There's a lot of factors that went into the Steelers and the Monday night history and playoff losses.”
Avello agreed.
“Yeah, for us it doesn't (matter),” Avello said. “For the bettors, it probably does.”
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